User blog:Pinkguy the b0ss/Inside Out Review
What's up my Shreks, it's me DiamondMinerStudios and I'm here today to give a full review of Disney Pixar's Inside Out. Let's begin, shall we? So Inside Out takes place in the mind of an eleven-year-old hockey-loving girl named Riley. She is taken care of by her five emotions - Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust, as they control how she feels about things and create memories in the process, in the form of glowing glasslike orbs which bear the color of the emotion that made them - yellow for Joy, blue for Sadness, red for Anger, purple for Fear, and green for Disgust. They use a console in an incredibly tall tower called "Headquarters" by the characters. One kind of memory which is very important - only made during personality-defining moments in Riley's life - are called "core memories." They power different aspects of Riley's entire personality, and they form floating Islands over a large crevice (which we'll get to later on), which are called "Islands of Personality." Whenever a certain one is invoked by other people or certain events - for example, Riley's dad acting like a monkey, which starts up Goofball Island - the island's power turns on and is "activated," so to say. If a core memory is removed from the power core, the island loses all of its power, and if it is started up, it will collapse due to no power heading to it. Another concept is ideas - they are in the form of lighbulbs which can be screwed into a slot in the console. An example is Joy's idea early on to have Riley face her parents in a fun hockey match in their house. This concept has been done countless times before, with varying results, but I think this film does it the best of all. It takes a not-so-original concept and makes it original once again. Anyways, Riley and her family live in Minnesota, and she lives a very happy childhood with Joy acting as a leader. However, she moves to San Francisco, California, and Riley must adapt to the changes while her emotions are at conflict in her mind. Now with that out of the way, let's get into the meat and potatoes of this review and discuss the plot. Plot As I said before, Riley is an eleven-year-old girl who is taken care of by her five emotions. She moves to San Francisco, which sets the plot into motion. The emotions conflict over Riley's new residence, Joy in particular because she wants Riley to be nothing but happy 24/7. Now, this is why the movie dosen't have feminist messages - females do take the lead, but they have flaws just like every other person. Joy's is that she can be a little bit controlling, and another that I'll talk about now - Sadness. Joy dosen't know what Sadness' purpose is, so she ignores her and basically pushes her aside. This upsets Sadness, but Joy dosen't realize, so it can't be said that she is intentionally upsetting Sadness. Anyways, a lot of things go wrong, including the family's moving van being lost, to which the family's investor is out until Thursday, the only pizza place selling brocolli on their pizza (which leads to a funny moment with Riley's emotions complaining about it), among other things. It is that Joy finds out that if Sadness touches any happy memory, even core ones, that they become irreversably sad. This is an important plot point for the movie. She then takes her over to a bookshelf and has her read a manual named Long Term Memory Retrieval Volume 47, "a real page turner," according to Joy. Later that day, the other emotions insist on taking control of Riley, but that's when Riley's mother enters the room and says how she is happy with Riley that she was able to stay "their happy girl," even in their current situation. The other emotions suddenly decide they "can't argue with mom" and join Joy in her quest for Riley's happiness. That night, Joy takes "dream duty," in other words, watching Riley's dreams. It turns out to be a nightmare about brocolli pizza served by a "bear" (a metephor for an LGBT activist, which California is infamous for having tons of) and zombie mice. Joy is dumbfounded and shuts the dream off, changing it to a scene of Riley and her parents skating together. She skates along with it, which is a pretty heartwarming moment. She then promises that the following day would be better than the previous one. The next morning, on Riley's first day of school, she is eating cereal as Joy wakes up the rest of the emotions with her accordion playing. They are all tired, while Joy is full of energy and excitement for the day ahead. She tells each emotion what their jobs are for the day - Fear listing all the possible bad outcomes, Disgust focusing on Riley's outfit, Anger taking care of daydreams, which she ordered extra in case things get slow, Sadness standing in the "Circle of Sadness," a chalk circle she drew on the ground (yes, I'm serious, Joy asked Sadness to stand in a chalk circle all day), which left her with the console. However, at school, with Riley introducing herself and Joy using a happy memory to help her do that, Sadness leaves the circle, making it sad and causing Riley's tone to shift to sadness. Joy tries to remove it, but it won't budge. While she does that, Sadness touches the console, causing Riley to cry. With that, a sad core memory is created, which Joy attempts to stop. When she grabs it, she tries to throw it our a chute which leads to Long Term Memory, a place where all non-core memories are sent at the day's end, but Sadness fights this, causing Joy to bump into the core and spill the core memories onto the ground. She quickly rounds them up, sees Sadness pick up the sad one, and knocks it out of her hand. This is when the sucking of the chute pulls Joy in. She struggles to escape, but then Sadness gets pulled into it, causing Joy to lose her grip and they both get sucked out of Headquarters as the other emotions look on with shock. Joy and Sadness get sucked through a long pipe, ending up in Long Term Memory. Joy rounds up the core memories she dropped, hugging them just like a mother to her children, and looks around with confusion. They are right next to Goofball Island, and Joy decides they will walk the energy pipe back to HQ. The only problem - it is thin and right above the Memory Dump, which Sadness says that if they fall into it, they will be forgotten for all time. Joy is initially optimistic, saying that they're not that high up, but immediately changes attitude when she sees how high they are, revealing her fear of heights. Back up at HQ, Anger, Fear and Disgust argue over what they will do. They cause Riley to get into a large argument with her father, getting sent to her room. There, her dad comes in, apologizes, and tries to start up Goofball Island. This causes it to collapse, to which Joy and Sadness have to flee it and watch it fall, which Joy gets upset over and almost cries. Sadness begins to despair, while Joy attempts to cheer her up. She starts to walk down the halls, to which Sadness says she will get lost as she knows from the manuals. Joy gets excited when she hears this, running back to Sadness in disbelief asking if she knows the way back to HQ. Sadness answers yes, to which Joy's excitement explodes and she tells Sadness to start leading the way. Sadness can't walk because she has no energy, so Joy drags her along. Sadness tells her directions, but later they seem to have gotten even more lost. They encounter mind workers, who Joy attempts to get directions out of, and they, like the jerks they are, ignore her entirely. Riley is later talking to her friend over Skype, and she gets angry, slamming her computer shut. This causes Friendship Island to collapse. After Joy sees this, she gets extremely upset, until she sees a pink elephant-like character in the distance, stealing memories from the shelves. She calls for him, to which he thinks he is being reprimanded and runs away. Joy realizes his misunderstanding and chases him. She eventually finds him hiding, to which he attempts to divert her attention and run away, but he runs into a cart, spilling memories all over. Joy then says he looks familiar, and realizes that he's actually Bing Bong, an imaginary friend of Riley's. This causes her to get over-excited as she introduces herself and Sadness - "I'm Joy, this is Sadness." Bing Bong is in disbelief, saying "You're Joy, the Joy?" He asks why they are there, and Joy makes a wisecrack, "Good question, want to answer that, Sadness?" They then begin to walk down the halls of Long Term, where Joy says she is a huge fan of Bing Bong's works, including his theme song which they both sing together. The lyrics are as follows - "Who's your friend who likes to play? Bing Bong, Bing Bong His rocket makes you yell "Hooray!" Bing Bong, Bing Bong Who's the best in every way, and wants to sing this song to say Bing Bong, Bing Bong!" Joy then almost drops her memories, to which Bing Bong offers his bag to carry them in. Joy agrees, but Bing Bong hilariously dumps a large amout of memories out of it, but not only that, there is also junk like an anchor, a trumpet, a urainal, and a cat. Yes, a live cat, even at this small of a scale. It makes it funnier to think this - "Why is there a cat there, and how did it get there?" Bing Bong does say "It's imaginary," but you still have to wonder. Bing Bong then says that they should take the Train of Thought back to HQ, which is a train that runs whenever Riley is awake. They pass through a mysterious industrial complex, which Sadness is doubtful of. They then get locked in and it gets turned on - it is a place called Abstract Thought. The trio begins to become more abstract, suffering the three stages - non-objective fragmentation, two-dimensional, and "nothing but shapes and color." Sadness says that if they don't get out quick, they'll be trapped in there forever as nothing but abstract shapes, being unable to move. They find a door, and Sadness discovers that they can fall on their faces and become one-dimensional, allowing them to fit through and miraculously escape just in time. They then quickly return to normal, and the train leaves the nearby station just as they are about to get on it. They end up in Imagination Land, which excites Joy as she looks around. Bing Bong shows her various parts, such as the French Fry Forests, but what really gets Joy over the moon with excitement is Cloud Town, a city made of nothing but clouds. She tears a section of a wall, trying it out, exclaiming about the softness of the cloud. Bing Bong tries, but the owner of the house comes out and gets mad at him. Bing Bong kills him with his trunk and runs away. They then notice changes made to Imagination Land such as Riley's imaginary boyfriend, who is a parody of Justin Bieber. Joy is disgusted, but shakes it off and the trio heads for a place called "Preschool World." Riley's mom takes her to hockey tryouts later that day. Fear recalls every hockey memory Riley has made, and tries to subsitute them for the core memory. It initially works, but then backfires as the core spits the memory out. Fear then tries again, making the core spaz out and shoot memories everywhere. Riley falls down, and Anger takes control, causing RIley to furiously throw her stick onto the ground and storm off the ice and get undressed. This causes Hockey Island to collapse, which startes the trio, who were busy having fun in Imagination Land. They then head for another train station, and at it many things get destroyed. Bing Bong's song-powered wagon rocket gets pushed into the dump, which upsets him. Joy tries to cheer him up with no luck, but Sadness sympathizes with him, cheering him up. Joy is amazed, and they start the walk to the station. They get onto the train and begin to head towards the HQ. It is at this moment when Anger suggests they run away back up in HQ. The other emotions shoot it down, and Anger is annoyed. Later on, the train stops moving, because Riley falls asleep. Joy spots Dream Productions, and they decide to wake Riley up. Once there, Joy is amazed at how large the place is. Then, something catches her eye - a unicorn named Rainbow Unicorn, an actor from a series called "Fairy Dream Adventure." Joy gets over-excited, and walks by with a "playing it cool" smile on her face due to her being a huge fan of Rainbow Unicorn's. Sadness talks to her, saying "My friend says you're famous, she wants your autograph." Joy stops her, and apologizes for bothering her, embarrased. She leaves, but not before popping back in and saying how much of a fan she is, running away in embarassment. The trio makes their way into a soundstage, as a dream is being set up. Fear is on dream duty this night. Joy decides to wake Riley up in excitement instead of scaring her. She entrusts Bing Bong with the core memories, telling him not to let anything happen to them. They dress up as a dog and interrupt the dream with Bing Bong, which is a re-enactment of the school scene from earlier. The costume comes apart, appearing as the dog being cut in half on the camera due to a "Reality Distortion Filter" the cameraman is using. The director calls security, and Bing Bong is captured and brought to the Subconcious basement. Joy and Sadness go down there and make a noise with the door, causing the guards to imprison them in there as well. They make their way through, getting scared due to Riley's worst fears being present. Eventually they come to a trail of candy wrappers, from Bing Bong crying candy, which I forgot to mention he does. They follow it to a large clown, with Joy whispering in terror, "It's Jangles..." They make their way to Jangles the Clown and see Bing Bong trapped in a balloon cage on Jangles' chest. Joy walks onto Jangles with a light step, freeing Bing Bong from his cage and taking the core memories from him, embracing them with a tight hug. They flee Jangles, but realize they still need a way to escape. Joy and Sadness wake him up, and begin to fearfully talk about a "birthday party." Jangles chases them with a hammer, destroying the door to the Subconcious. The trio leads him to Dream Productions, to which he causes Fear to wake Riley up. The other emotions wake up, and this is when Anger picks up the idea bulb again. Fear and Disgust agree, and Anger inserts the idea into the console, to which Riley immediately takes it, meaning there is no turning back. The trio gets back on the train, which starts moving again. Joy is ecstatic that they are going home (which is HQ for them), and even Sadness is happy in one of the many heartwarming moments in this masterpiece. Bing Bong then points out sections of Riley's mind. Joy then has a little talk with Sadness, telling her that she did a good job back at Dream Productions, in another heartwarming moment. Joy then sees Riley's memory about a tournament game, a memory that she loves. Sadness seems to be "getting it," according to Joy, after she happily talks about it. However, she then says how Riley was sad they lost and wanted to quit. Joy then says that they'll "work on it" once they're back home. Joy then puts the memory into her bag, presumably to keep it for herself. Back in HQ, Anger gets money from Riley's mom's purse in order to pay for a Greyhound ticket back to Minnesota. This causes her Honesty Island to collapse. Back in the train, the island collapses onto the track, crashing the train. Joy, Sadness and Bing Bong get out of the train before it falls into the dump, hurrying to safety. Joy is sad, saying "That was our way home!" It is here revealed that Riley is running away, and Joy is frightened by this. However, her spirit is not entirely crushed, as Family Island still remains. The trio runs to it, but it appears to be unstable. Sadness says they cannot go on there, and with that one of the shelves fall, revealing a recall tube. The three try to get in, but Sadness getting in would cause the core memories to turn sad. Joy hesitantly closes herself in, leaving behind Sadness and Bing Bong. The look she gives clues us in to the fact that that was the hardest decision Joy had ever had to make, and was extremely remorseful. However, the tube breaks, and Joy falls into the memory dump. Then, the land Bing Bong is standing on breaks, causing him to fall in as well. Sadness looks down, calling Joy's name, but it's no use - Joy is has fallen in. At the bottom, Joy looks up, and is intimidated by how far down she is. She gets up off the ground and starts to run for a wall to climb. Bing Bong lands nearby, and witnesses faded memories disintigrate into nothing. He then sees his own hand start to fade, meaning he is disappearing. He sees Joy in the distance, as she is repeatadly running up a side of the dump in vain. He tells her to stop, as she cannot escape. Joy stops, and hears Riley crying in the distance. She sees a glowing blue memory, walks over to it. It turns out to be the sad core memory that was made by accident at the start of the movie. This is it. This is what finally breaks Joy. She falls to her knees, softly sobbing. She picks up various memories, and reminisces about Riley's happy childhood in a tear-jerking moment. She breaks down into tears, and Bing Bong sadly looks on. She then takes her hockey memory out, repeatedly rewinding and fast forwarding it. She hears Sadness' voice talking about how sad RIley was and that she wanted to quit. Joy has a realization - Sadness is a very important part of Riley's life. Joy then gets up, saying to Bing Bong that they have to get out of there. Bing Bong is hopeless, but Joy remembers that his rocket was thrown into the dump. She starts to sing his theme song, and Bing Bong finds out what she is doing and joins in. They hear the broken jingle in the distance and run towards it with smiles on their faces. In a pile of memories lied the rocket. They get into it, lining up with a book they can use as a ramp. They push it along, jump in, and sing the theme song. It almost works, but falls back down just before they reach safety. They try again, with the same result. It is at this time that Bing Bong decides that Joy reaching the HQ is more important than him, and gets Joy ready for another try. As they are singing and getting faster, Bing Bong encourages Joy to sing louder and stronger, and in the most powerful scene I have ever seen in an animated film, jumps out of the rocket, sacrificing himself so that Joy can make it home safely. Joy cheers that they are making it, oblivious to the fact that Bing Bong jumped, as the rocket fires its last rainbow (yes, the trails are rainbows), shattering as it lands at the top of the dump. Joy lets out a cheerful cry, happily exclaiming that they did it. However, Bing Bong is nowhere to be found. Joy rushes to the cliff, and sees him cheering her on and telling her to save Riley. He then says this in one of the saddest moments in film history - "Take her to the moon for me. Ok?" Apparently, Richard Kind, Bing Bong's voice actor, was in tears when he uttered this line in the studio. Joy watches him fade into nothing - presumably dying - and she says these powerful words in tears, "I'll try, Bing Bong. I promise..." With that, she continues on, looking for Sadness. Meanwhile, Riley, supposedly leaving for school, leaves her house. It is at this moment that Anger, Fear, and Disgust begin to regret going through with the idea. They try to pull it out as Riley approaches the bus station, but they can't. The console begins to blacken after Riley ignores her mother's call. While this happens, Joy looks for Sadness, until she pretends to be her, and sees a trail of blue memories, which would lead her to Sadness, and it does. When she finds Sadness, she yells her name, happy to see her again, but she runs away, thinking she is worthless. The run into Imagination Land, where Joy hatches a plan to use the boyfriend making machine to her advantage. She puts her bag at the end of the converyor belt, enters the amount that will be produced, 9999999 to be exact (leave the Inglorious Basterds Hitler jokes for later, please). She then uses a balloon to change the direction that Sadness was heading on a cloud, away from the HQ, to towards it. She then picks up her bag, full of clones of the imaginary boyfriend, and begins the run over to Family Island, which has a trampoline on it. Joy then unleashes the clones into a stack beneath her feet, careful not to let the memories fall out. At the top, she puts the bag back on and stares into the abyss. As previously mentioned, she is deathly afraid of heights, and trembles in fear, trying to convince herself to think positively. However, she looks down, and exclaims, "I'M POSITIVE THIS IS CRAZY!!" Then, she leans forward, and begins to fall. The stack of clones hilariously yell "Weeeeeeee!!!" as they fall down, not understanding the urgency of the situation. Joy bounces on the trampoline, which sends her flying towards Sadness. Her plan worked. She grabs Sadness from the cloud. Sadness is in disbelief, saying, "Joy..?" She responds, "Hang on!" as they fly towards the HQ. Inside the HQ, Fear says he wishes Joy was there, and his wish is granted as her and Sadness hit the window behind them. They run over as Joy and Sadness hold on the ledge on the window. Disgust calls Anger stupid to get him to flare up, and flames shoot out of his head. She uses this to melt the window, and the three help Joy and Sadness back into HQ. They all try to explain what happened at once, and Joy sees the bus leave from Riley's vision on the screen. She says Sadness needs to fix this, and once there, she looks at her with a confident nod, saying "Riley needs you." Once at the console, Sadness pulls the idea out. Riley then yells for the bus to stop, and she runs off towards her house. At the house, her parents are worried sick, calling her school saying they haven't seen Riley all day. She then bursts through the door and her parents are relieved. In yet another powerful moment, Joy gives Sadness the core memories, and they turn sad. She nods, fully confident that Sadness can save the day. She inserts the memories into the beam of light, causing Riley to remember them, and she cries. She explains that she misses her old home in Minnesota. Her parents share her sadness, and cheer her up with a group hug. Joy and Sadness look on, and a new core memory is made - a combination between yellow and blue. This creates a new family island with the Golden Gate Bridge on it. Joy and Sadness embrace each other, a renewed friendship, as Riley's family stays in the group hug. After this, a sequence of Riley's new personality is shown, including a new console where multiple emotions can now work together rather than one at a time. With this, they make a brilliant puberty joke as Riley walks to the ice as a part of her hockey team. She sees a boy, who stares at her speechless. In his mind, an alarm sounds, "GIRL, GIRL, GIRL!!" in a hilarious parody of how us guys typically act around girls - you know, we've all been there, and since I'm a guy, it's just that much funnier. Riley gets on the ice, with Joy and the others working together. Joy leaves off with the quote, "After all, Riley's 12 now! What can happen?" Conclusion This movie is so good that I haven't seen any that top it's all-around greatness. Great soundtrack, wonderful animation, likeable characters (which I think Joy is the best of, but that's just my opinion), good story, with some great touching moments thrown in. I can confidently say that this is the best animated movie I have ever seen - NOTHING compares! ...Ok, I'm just joking. I still like the first Shrek way more. Also, video games. Most of those are better too, after all, I am a bigger fan of video games than one of movies. ...Ahem. Anyway, that doesn't matter. Inside Out is still pretty great. It will take Pixar a lot to create another movie of theirs that can top this. Category:Blog posts